A prescribed medication: my experience

I was part of this Herald report. I ask you to forgive me for using a swear word. Please do not say that I am brave. I am not. I am a worrier and hate causing upset. Brave are those like Alyne Duthie.

In the era of Evidenced Based Medicine the work and thoughts of the sociologist Patrick Geddes seem to have been rarely considered. Geddes argued that evidence comes in many forms. Evidenced Based Medicine is just one form. Geddes, were he still alive, might ask how “informed” today’s evidence is?

2 Replies to “A prescribed medication: my experience”

Well done,Peter, yet again speaking out and taking a stand! I believe you ARE brave. It takes guts to reveal yourself and to keep on revealing yourself in what others in the profession of psychiatry might see as weakness when in fact it’s a strength.

I also believe that your witness and solidarity with others who expose themselves for the sake of mental healthcare improvement is special, all the while when working as a consultant psychiatrist in the NHS, prescribing neuroleptics and taking/receiving a prescription of antidepressants yourself.

I think, imagine, it has to be like a double edged sword at times. Painful, cathartic, lonely, isolating. I can understand something of this in my work as a whistleblower, campaigner, activist and troubleshooter in mental health matters. The cost.